Cold Reader

Student Elaine Donohoe goes missing, and Clare Vorland, a woman who describes herself as a psychic advisor, comes forward to help. The phrase 'psychic advisor' sets the teeth on edge, and Burke's are firmly on edge. He's a detective of the old school; he doesn't believe in visions, and he says so. But the leads are going nowhere, and when Clare mentions a white van, the team actually finds one, belonging to another girl from Elaine's hockey team. The girl's brother has a past that doesn't stand up to much looking at.

Burke still isn't convinced. He attends one of Clare's public meetings, more out of desperation than belief, and gets unsettled in a way he wasn't ready for. She tells him things about his own father that she could not logically know. Then she predicts where Elaine's body will be found, and the case stops being a simple abduction.

Glenn Chandler, Dominic Morgan and Matt Harvey wrote it, Adrian McDowall directed. Julie Duncanson plays Clare with a calm that makes her hard to read, which is exactly right. Alex Norton's Burke does the slow crumbling in the middle, with Blythe Duff as Jackie Reid, John Michie as Robbie Ross, Colin McCredie as Stuart Fraser and Katrina Bryan as Ellis Sinclair around him. Alan Francis is Kieran, Finlay McLean is Mr Gill Donohoe, Jane Stabler is Mrs Donohoe and Pollyanna McIntosh is Morag Shearer.

Whether Clare is genuine or just very good at cold reading is a question the episode keeps open, and it's the right call. The real unease is watching a sceptic's certainties come apart in public. Burke doesn't solve the case because he believes; he solves it because he can't stop being bothered by her. The episode never cheats, and it never explains, which is the only honest way to play this material. That's the whole trick, and it's a good one.